


your doghouse

by Anonymous



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Pre-Femslash, but she sorta wishes she wasn't, meredith is with derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29793078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: If Derek has a problem with Meredith's snoring, Cristina has a problem with Derek. A problem which she intends to solve by usurping his side of the bed. It's just too bad that it works.
Relationships: Meredith Grey & Cristina Yang, Meredith Grey/Cristina Yang
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16
Collections: anonymous





	your doghouse

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in a sitting bwahaha enjoy

“You’re doing the thing,” Cristina complains to Meredith one day. 

“What thing?” asks Meredith, looking up at Cristina with as much faked innocence as she can muster; while it is entirely true that she cannot place what she’s done wrong, she can hardly call herself innocent on account of being dark and twisty. 

“The thing where you sulk around all day and  _ clearly  _ want somebody to attend to your deeply wounded emotions, but then when I ask what’s wrong after a solid fifteen hours of trying to ignore it just out of spite you sigh and say you’re fine.” 

Meredith winces apologetically upon realizing that she  _ has _ , in fact, been doing the thing. 

“It’s just a really stupid issue,” she mutters, her back sliding against the edge of the lockers as she moves to sit down. 

“So then get over it.” Cristina heaves a pile of her too-heavy textbooks from one of the metal benches and into her locker, slamming the thing shut with her foot. It makes a heavy  _ thud  _ that Meredith, having seen this display more times than she can count, is well-prepared for. 

Meredith resolves to do just that: get over it. She absentmindedly watches Cristina go through her routine of packing up her things in an attempt to distract herself. Yet, five minutes later, she’s still sighing and doing what Cristina will later call her  _ woe-is-me  _ face. 

“Oh my  _ God,  _ Mere, just spit it out before I fall to the floor from second-hand depression.” 

“Derek’s been lying to me this whole time!”

Cristina’s eyes widen. “Shit, really?” She takes a seat on the ground next to Meredith. “What about?” 

“He doesn’t actually sleep in the same bed as me.” Meredith gives Cristina her most pitiful pout. Then, when Crisitna urges her on with a circular motion of her wrist, “Apparently I snore. So, every night, when we go to sleep, he waltzes on off to the couch or some other bed and sleeps  _ there _ . Then he wakes up at, like, six, and climbs into bed and watches me sleep like a creep until I wake up!” Meredith’s voice rises in her agony. 

“Wow. That’s…” 

“Pathetic? Deceptive? Yeah, I know.”

“I was actually going to say that it’s sort of adorable,” Cristina clarifies. “I mean, I think I speak for everyone when I say that I want a guy to go through  _ that _ much effort to keep me operating under the false pretense that I don’t make him want to stab me every time we get in bed together.” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t like it,” Meredith mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest. “I want to  _ actually  _ be all warm and cuddly. Not just think that I am.” 

“Hey, they say the placebo effect works wonders.” 

Meredith has no answer to this. Finally, Cristina sighs heavily, pushing herself to her feet.

“Fine, I’ll help you. Actually, I think I’ve got a plan. You’ve just gotta bear with me. ‘Kay, Mere?” 

Meredith looks up at Cristina to see that this idea isn’t just  _ any  _ idea. It’s a Cristina idea, the same kind of idea she had used to get George booted out of her and Burke’s apartment. Against her better judgement, Meredith nods carefully. 

“Let’s hear it.” 

***

“Oh. Hey, Yang.” Derek barely looks up when Meredith and Cristina walk into Meredith’s room, only holding up a hand in greeting; Cristina is hardly an uncommon visitor in the Grey household. 

“Dr. Shepherd,” says Cristina cheerily. She plops a rather large backpack on his and Meredith’s bed.  _ This  _ gets Derek’s attention.

“Oh,” he says again, this time a little uncomfortably. “Things, uh, not going so hot, with, y’know…”

“No, actually, I don’t know,” says Cristina with all the passive-aggression in the world. 

“Burke,” Derek finally finishes.

“Oh, no.” Cristina sits down on the bed and leans down until her back is touching the covers, then pulls up her foot and yanks her shoe from her foot by the heel. She tosses it across the room; Derek nearly has to dodge. “Things with Burke are peachy.” 

(They are not, in fact, peachy. Both Meredith and Derek neglect to point out as much.)

“So, then, why are you”-- Derek gestures towards the mess Cristina is already making of the bed. 

“Derek, babe,” says Meredith with a placating hand to his shoulder, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes?” Derek prompts rather apprehensively. 

“You don’t like my snoring. That’s perfectly understandable. But I have needs.”

“N-needs?” 

“Cuddling needs,” Meredith supplies. “That’s what Cristina is here for.” 

Derek cowers back slightly from where Meredith is leaning over him. He certainly looks taken aback. 

“Oh. That’s, uh, okay.” Meredith turns around because she needs to actually get into bed for any of this to work, but also because she thinks her acting skills might fall short if she has to keep from smirking for any longer. 

Cristina scoots over on the covers and pats at the spot next to her invitingly. Mockingly. And since Meredith is enjoying this way more than is reasonable, she slides into bed next to Cristina and takes a certain pleasure in how Derek watches with a dumbstruck expression. 

“I-I mean, we could take care of the snoring, I’m sure you could get a-a nose strip,” Derek reasons, mouth still open in confusion. 

“And succumb to the unrealistic expectations society has set for how a woman should act to appease men?” Cristina challenges snarkily, punctuating this by sliding an arm around Meredith’s midsection.

“I think I’ll stick with Cristina,” concludes Meredith. Derek’s mouth is still open, but he’s struggling slightly to get words out. “Get the light on your way out, would you?”

Derek carefully studies Meredith, eyebrows raised. Finally, he shrugs helplessly and flicks the light switch before heading out of the room. 

“Thanks,” Meredith calls sweetly after him. 

A minute or so later, once Derek is presumably out of earshot, Cristina bursts out cackling.

“Welp.  _ That  _ was a good use of my Wednesday evening.” 

Meredith joins her with a giggle, flopping her head down onto the pillow. She, too, is thoroughly entertained. 

“Thanks for doing this.”

“Eh, really, you were doing me a favor,” Cristina admits. “Burke and I aren’t in an  _ awful  _ place, per say, but I think I’m a little in the doghouse. Like, not shitting-in-the-grass-outside doghouse, but doghouse.”

_ That’s one way of putting it,  _ thinks Meredith. 

“Sure,” she says instead. “Now, the question remains: will  _ you  _ be annoyed by my snoring?”

“Oh, I snore like the devil,” Cristina assures Meredith with a hearty scoff. “You think between the two of us, he’ll still be able to hear from out there?”

“There’s only one way to find out.” Meredith yawns, finally finding herself tired under the heavy comforter. “Let’s raise hell, shall we?” 

***

It works. Derek never utters another peep about Meredith’s snoring, and he stays in bed with her the whole night the next day (Izzie, who bakes like mad from dusk until dawn, confirms as much). 

Meredith doesn’t know why, but it irks her. Maybe she’d been hoping to have to draw the plan out a little longer to humiliate Derek.

Or maybe she’d rather sleep in a bed with somebody who doesn’t have to suffer through it. Maybe Cristina is just better-attuned to her needs. Because  _ maybe _ , in an alternate universe, her and Cristina would make a damn cute couple. 

In this universe, Meredith wakes up every couple of hours to see Derek looking at her with those discontent, furrowed eyebrows, and Meredith wishes she could move into Cristina’s doghouse. 

_ Huh...food for thought.  _

**Author's Note:**

> hope you had fun reading that. comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
